


Kenopsia

by PatternsInTheIvy



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Gen, post-S3, short and sad, with a hopeful ending if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:01:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28345791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PatternsInTheIvy/pseuds/PatternsInTheIvy
Summary: He shouldn’t be here, because Mac knows that he is after something that doesn’t exist anymore.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 18





	Kenopsia

**Author's Note:**

> I don't take responsibility for this angst. I was minding my own business when a cover of Nothing Else Matters started to play on shuffle, demanding that I finished this, and really, who am I to refuse writing post-S3 angst inspired by that song? As you can see by the quotes of another song here, currently I am quite unable to listen to music without writing fanfic. ~~I need to be stopped.~~

* * *

_“Moving on is a simple thing_

_What it leaves behind is hard”_

À Tout le Monde by Megadeth

* * *

He shouldn’t be here.

As in, he is probably trespassing State property. The Phoenix Foundation lost its funding, which means that the building they used as headquarters is closed, probably waiting until it is repurposed.

Well, it is not like the security system they are using is any good in keeping people out. Mac had no difficulty to tamper with it using three paperclips, tinfoil, and copper wire.

It is like they don't even care about people trespassing, not really. And why should they? Everything that made Phoenix the Phoenix is gone, and without it, this building is just one of many government properties. There is nothing here that needs to be kept secret, safe.

He shouldn’t be here, because Mac knows that he is after something that doesn’t exist anymore.

Wandering around the rooms, it is almost like there is a juxtaposed image of how it was before and how it is now. The stillness of now is overlayed by the movement of yesterday. If he ignores what his senses tell him, the corridors will be well lit by fluorescent lamps, instead of the shy light of the flashlight Mac holds.

A thin layer of dust covers the surfaces — unused furniture, handrails, the floor… he touches the glass of the war room, drags his arm down, leaving the marks of his fingers there. He enters the room, cleans the dust off his hands and leans against the door.

The big screen was removed from the wall, but if he just keeps that mental exercise going, it's almost possible to see there the information of a mission briefing. He just has to recall the right memories and everything will be there. He will be already thinking of what to do, the scenarios that they might encounter in the mission will be going through his mind.

And he won’t be alone.

Matty will be saying something, briefing them. Maybe Bozer will crack a joke. There will be the noise of Riley typing on the keyboard. Desi maybe will ask something else about the mission...

He tries to ignore the other absence that his heart notices, because, well, that one is a few months older, and in some ways, it is more poignant than the others. It is the one void in his life that he’d come to believe he needn’t fear.

As it turns out, he should always fear that. People leave, they always do, it’s always a matter of time. He is thinking of that when his eyes catch something shiny beneath one of the couches. A paperclip. Mac kneels on the floor and takes it off the floor, already beginning to twist it into the target of his anger and bitterness…

Pocketing the paperclip, he stands up and leaves the war room, intent on wandering a bit more.

The laboratory is a mess of things — half-finished electric circuits, expired reagents, a broken drill. All covered by that thin layer of dust.

And that is just another evidence of how things changed. How _he_ changed. Before, he would be thinking of how to take all those discarded parts and turning them into new things that would be useful for something or someone, but now… Now he just leaves those things be as they are, no fixing, no improving.

Before he leaves what once was Phoenix Foundation, Mac restores the security system to function. This is how it is now. It matters not how it used to be.

Driving home passes in a blur, and Mac doesn’t know exactly what happens in that short trip. One moment he is closing the Phoenix’s doors, and on the next, he is opening his door, walking up to the fridge and getting a beer bottle — well, a few beer bottles, and contrary to how it was before, he is going to drink all of them alone.

Home is yet another point of contrast between past and present. Movement and the sounds of people talking replaced by stillness and the quietness that is a loud reminder of his loneliness. He lightens the fire just to hear the crackling noises.

He sits outside, staring up at the sky, holding the bottle in his hands, feeling the droplets of condensation run down his hands, reach his wrists.

It is a beautiful night, and he can see many of the stars, name the constellations… but there is no one around to hear some random fact about celestial bodies. But he can’t help but think of those…

Some stars are unique to the South or North hemispheres, others can be seen in both. The latitude also matters.

That older, deeper absence makes itself known, demanding to be acknowledged.

Mac has no idea of where on the face of the Earth Jack is. Does he look up to the sky at night and sees the same stars, or is that just another evidence of how worlds apart they are now?

Phoenix sinking would be more bearable if Jack were around, and Jack’s absence would be manageable if he had missions to distract himself. But now he’s got nothing, except for the reminder that everything in his life happens on borrowed time. Sixty-four days, or all the years they spent together, it’s all the same, it just hurts more.

Putting down the bottle, Mac fishes for the paperclip inside his pocket. He twists the thin metal a bit more, finishing the shape he was making earlier and then stares at it.

An hourglass.

Mac tosses it into the fire, watches as the metal becomes blackened. He wishes he could go back to the past and exist in a moment that would not decay as the sands of time inevitably fall down.

Time, it always takes things away from him, and all he’s got left are these memories of what was but isn’t anymore, these two instants in time that cannot coexist.

Mac can go on, he can push through yet another thing that is thrown at him. It’s what he’s always done, ever since his mother’s death. He misses Phoenix, the job, the team, misses Jack. But missing things never killed anyone, right? Maybe he should work harder the next time he doesn’t want to lose what he holds dear.

He gives up on the beers for the night. Tomorrow he has a class to teach early in the morning, and his little trip to Phoenix cost him time that he should be using to make the last adjustments to his lecture. That sort of thing shouldn’t be happening, he is more responsible than that.

After he puts out the fire and goes inside, the house is quiet, the only sources of light are from a desk lamp and the screen of his computer. This reality, quiet and lonely, is his today and will likely be his tomorrow as well. Yesterday is not yet in the past where it belongs, and no amount of wishing will change that, but perhaps keeping a controlled grip on that desire is the starting point to make things easier on himself.

**Author's Note:**

> No paperclips were harmed in the making of this fic.
> 
> **Kenopsia:** (noun) the eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that’s usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet—a school hallway in the evening, an unlit office on a weekend, vacant fairgrounds—an emotional afterimage that makes it seem not just empty but hyper-empty, with a total population in the negative, who are so conspicuously absent they glow like neon signs.


End file.
